With ‘Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues’ being the buzz of the holiday season, Forbes brought up a great question in their recent post asking “Can all brands be this successful with their Social Media Marketing, or do you have to be an established brand with a rabid fan base?”

Being established does help quite a bit, as the article points out. But it also mentions that as long as your brand brings social to the forefront of any planned campaign- and this includes everything from social listening, to pulling market insights, to planning a social campaign to run parallel with your overall Marketing campaign- then there’s a good chance you’ll be successful.

What Does Your Fan Base Look Like?

One key is to figure out what your current ‘fan base’- whether huge or small- already looks like. You can bet that Great Odin’s Raven Scotch has either already confirmed (or are keeping their fingers crossed) that the Anchorman fan base are in fact actual scotch drinkers.

If you’re a savvy Marketer, you might also want to figure out which TV shows or stations your fans are watching, and connect with them there. Ron Burgundy’s interview with Peyton Manning on ESPN is a great example – assuming Anchorman fans (or potential fans of the movie) are also big NFL fans.

Make Social A Forethought

The goal is to use your current market and social data to build a ‘Persona’ of your fans. What do they like? Where do they go? How do they think? Do something with all of that data you have behind your brand and your fans to help build the perfect Marketing campaign.

And as mentioned in the Forbes post, and it should be emphasized again- to be successful in your Marketing efforts, social should come BEFORE the campaign. It should be a forethought, not an afterthought. It should lead, not follow.

“Social should be built into the core of everything.” Well said.

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues finally releases tomorrow after much anticipation – and here’s to hoping the movie is as good as the Marketing!

Kudos to Special K for creating a Marketing campaign geared towards women to help end the negative habit of ‘fat talk’ while shopping. As originally posted in this AdRants post, Special K, in a move similar to Dove’s Beauty campaign, has made a commitment to urge women to quit talking about how fat they think they are. This is a noble move on Special K’s part, since according to Psychology of Women Quarterly, 93 percent of women engage in fat talk. Let’s face it, we’ve all been one of those women (or men!) who’ve critiqued ourselves in some form or fashion in front of the fitting room mirror.

Special K has partnered with model Tyra Banks as a spokesperson, to help empower women to be more confident in their bodies, remove negative thoughts, and learn ways to enhance their least favorite features. All in all, a unique campaign for a great cause. The type of campaign you hope every woman sees.

Really Getting to Know Your Target Audience

To make a dent in this campaign, Special K really needs to know their female audience and how to reach them. There are so many variables that can influence with whom and how the campaign might resonate. Is the target market young or old? Married or single? Introverted or extroverted? What type of interests do they have, what other brands do they engage with, and what media do they consume?

Each of these answers can help formulate the perfect recipe for Marketing success. For instance, is Tyra Banks the most influential spokesperson for this campaign, or would someone like Katy Perry resonate better (a decision that might change depending on the age, interests and personalities of the preferred target-market).

Traditional Research Versus Social Research

Special K could use traditional research methods for identifying these unique ‘Personas’ (which might all be targeted differently for the same campaign) – but that’s timely and expensive. They could more easily rely on their social audience to pull this information, which holds valuable clues to the types of people who are already engaged with their brand. If Special K is as forward-thinking in their targeting as they appear to be with their hashtag campaigns, they’ll surely celebrate this newest campaign as a success.

And on that note- if you want to post a positive thought on Twitter to help Special K silence the negativity, use hashtag #FightFatTalk.